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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25602289">Something Not Meant to Last</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whiskeytango86/pseuds/Whiskeytango86'>Whiskeytango86</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>...For the Rest of Mine [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Last of Us</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, F/F, Romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:35:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,640</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25602289</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whiskeytango86/pseuds/Whiskeytango86</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Now it was like Ellie didn’t have a place. They were together, and she was just <i>there.</i> Not that Dina didn’t make an effort to make her not feel that way. Ellie just liked it when she had Dina all to herself.</p><p>In a friend way. </p><p><i>All to herself</i> in a way that friends do."</p><p>Dina is with Jesse and Ellie is with Cat and the years pass by, neither able to come to terms with what they really feel.</p><p>A "Shaken by a Low Sound" Prequel</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cat/Ellie (The Last of Us), Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us), Dina/Jesse (The Last of Us)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>...For the Rest of Mine [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1848130</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>162</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Seems like pre-TLOU2 stories are all the rage right now, and there are some great ones being written.</p><p>I made a <i>huge</i> mistake and read Emcee_8912's Easy while I was working on this, and then had to basically start over because the stories were too similar. A lesson to me to stick to my guns and not read other fics while I'm writing, I guess.</p><p>Anyways, this story will hopefully help enrich my other work "Shaken by a Low Sound" if you've read that, but I don't know that it's necessary to read for this. Hope you enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It wasn’t her first kiss.</p><p>That had been just a peck, an innocent little thing when she was eleven years old. Shared with a girl whose name she never learned, who Dina thought was maybe her age. She had olive skin and long black curls, and shared her family’s food with Dina and her sister, even though there wasn’t much to give. </p><p>They were sitting cross legged in front of each other inside the girl’s tent at a small refugee camp nestled in the foothills outside of Taos. They counted down from 3 and shut their eyes tight. They both laughed afterwards. </p><p>Dina and Talia had barely survived the chaos that followed later that night, when the Raven’s came. Talia had pulled her underneath a mound of bodies, hiding beneath the men the Raven’s had killed, and clasped her palm over Dina’s mouth while she sobbed. </p><p>They waited another hour after the militia left with all the women and children before coming up for air. Dina had held her knife so tight the entire time they were buried that she thought her fingers would break.</p><p>She still thinks about that sweet girl in the tent all the time. She hopes she escaped. </p><p>Or died.</p><p>This wasn’t her second kiss either. That had been fuller, but not something wholly of herself.  Out in the shade behind the gym of the school with a tall boy named Greg, soon after she arrived in Jackson, she stood with her back against the bricks and let him kiss her. </p><p>He liked her, and she thought he was fine enough, but she wasn’t interested in giving herself away. She just wanted to <i>know.</i> What a real kiss felt like. What it would be like to kiss someone and not be afraid what would happen afterwards. If she could kiss someone and still be safe.</p><p>She walked away supposing that now she knew.</p><p>It wasn’t until she sat on a limestone bluff overlooking the lake with Jesse and he cupped her cheek in his big hand and pulled her lips into his, that she thought for the first time that she had really been kissed.</p><p>Summer was coming to a slow end. The dry mountain heat of the days stretching past sundown longer than they had either of the preceding years Dina had been in Jackson. The sunsets had been beautiful, amber and purple glows settling over the tips of the nearby peaks before disappearing behind them.</p><p>She wonders if that’s what Jesse was waiting for, the sap.</p><p>Their lips part and Jesse pulls his hand away from Dina’s face, the tips of his fingers tracing down the shape of her jaw,</p><p>“I’ve been wanting to do that for.... a <i>long</i> time,” Jesse says, steeping his lips up in that flashy little grin of his.</p><p>She thinks she has too.</p><p>Dina smiles back, her cheeks flushed. The tip of her tongue still feels warm where it brushed against his, and she can taste the salt of his sweat from the climb up onto the rocks away from their friends.</p><p>He dips his head in to kiss her again, but she stops him, her palm light against his chest.</p><p>“Whoa, hold up a minute”, she says, catching her breath.</p><p>He pulls back, confusion on his face, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”</p><p>“No, no”, she hurries out, “you didn’t do anything.”</p><p>His grin comes back in force, “Well… I thought I did <i>something.”</i></p><p>Dina rolls her eyes, “That’s not what-”</p><p>“Cause now I feel a little hurt. I mean, I didn’t do <i>anything?”</i></p><p>She smirks playfully, “It was a very… <i>nice</i> kiss.”</p><p>He puts his hand on his heart, and falls back, as though he’s been shot.</p><p>“Oh, just kill me now!”, he yells, writhing on the ground next to her.</p><p>“Shhh!”, she laughs, leaning over him, “everyone will hear you!”</p><p><i>“Nice!</i> It was <i>‘nice’</i> she said!”, he continues to wail, his eyes closed. </p><p>Dina is sure their friends further down at the base of the lake can hear him, which is entirely his point and also what she was hoping to avoid.</p><p>She looks back at him just in time to see one of his eyes blinking back shut from looking at her, and just as he’s about to start shouting again, she grabs his face, and pulls him into another kiss, almost more to shut him up than anything else.</p><p>When she feels his hand against her waist and his fingers against the back of her neck, she decides it wasn’t that bad of a choice.</p><p>She breaks away and leans on her arm next to him as he props himself up on his elbows, smiling at her again.</p><p>“That seemed… better than <i>nice”,</i> he says, playing with her fingers.</p><p>Dina bites her lip, looking down at their hands, </p><p>“Yeah… I guess. That was pretty good”.</p><p>“I’ll take pretty good.”</p><p>They lay there for a moment until the mood starts to turn a little awkward, both unsure what to do next.</p><p>“So…”, Jesse starts, sitting up more, as Dina does the same.</p><p>Dina looks down at the group coming out of the water, talking among themselves. She feels her stomach twist a bit as she turns back to Jesse. They’ll be up here pretty soon.</p><p>“I really like you”, she admits hurriedly.</p><p>Jesse breaks into a toothy grin, his eyes glinting, like this was novel information, as though they hadn’t just kissed twice.</p><p>“I really like you too”, he says, starting to lean towards her again.</p><p>She glances at their friends, beginning to dry themselves off.</p><p>“Yeah, cool. Look. I don’t think we should tell… anyone.”</p><p>Jesse’s smile doesn’t falter in the least, “You embarrassed of me?”</p><p>“Absolutely. 100%”, she answers without hesitation.</p><p>“Makes sense.”</p><p>She twists the cord on her bracelet nervously, her thumb rubbing against the hamsa on it, something she finds she does when she’s getting anxious. She doesn’t even exactly understand why she doesn’t want to tell their friends about it. </p><p>“It’s just… I don’t know. I don’t want to make anything weird? Can we just… play it cool for a while?”</p><p>Jesse winks at her, his grin turning lopsided, as he points both thumbs at his chest, </p><p>“Who’s cooler than this guy?”</p><p>“Jesus <i>christ”,</i> Dina shoves him and starts to stand, and he jumps up beside her. </p><p>“We don’t have to tell anyone”, he says in a low voice, close to her ear as the group makes their way up to them, their own voices growing louder. “We don’t need to label anything. You don’t even have to acknowledge you ever kissed me.”</p><p><i>“You</i> kissed <i>me”</i>, she whispers back, trying and failing to hide her smile.</p><p>“I sure did”, he gloats, and Dina can feel the heat rising in her cheeks at the memory, “And I want to again. Doesn’t matter if we tell anyone else or not.”</p><p>“What are you two lovebirds up to?”, Cat calls out as everyone finishes climbing up the rocks.</p><p>Dina twists her toes against the ground, and laughs nervously, feeling like they’ve been caught. She can’t summon the words to form a good explanation for why they went off by themselves.</p><p>“We were just talking about patrols. Dina was giving me advice on how to handle myself in the wild.” Jesse intervenes. He was starting to go out on group patrols now, it was a viable enough excuse. </p><p>Though, Dina wishes he hadn’t said <i>“how to…”</i></p><p>Cat lets out a long whistle, “Yeah son, I’ll bet she is telling you how to <i>handle</i> yourself.” </p><p>Walked right into that one. </p><p>You just… you can’t set Cat up like that.</p><p><i>“Alright,</i> everyone ready?”, Dina feels like her face is blazing, and she tries to move the conversation along, looking around the group, “Where’s-”</p><p>As she starts to ask, Cat leans down and offers her hand over the rocks, a pale hand taking it. Cat pulls and Ellie comes up, vaulting easily over the last bit. Her hair is wet from the lake, and it dangles in her face as she tries to wring it out, her eyes searching for someone. </p><p>Just in these few short months since she’s been here, Dina thinks she looks much healthier than she did when she arrived. She hasn’t caught sight of her stuffing food into her pockets in a while at least. </p><p>Even better, Ellie seem’s less guarded. Happy. If Dina has learned anything since meeting her, it’s that she really likes seeing Ellie happy. </p><p>Ellie’s face breaks into a huge smile when she catches sight of Dina, raising her hand in a small wave.</p><p>Dina’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes like it normally does, and she doesn’t know why, but she takes a small step away from Jesse.</p><p>She just…</p><p>No one needs to know yet.</p><p>----------</p><p>Ellie is laid out across Dina’s twin bed in her room, trying to flip through the pages of her comic. Trying not to engage as Dina moves around in front of her, picking up different pieces of clothing.</p><p>Dina shares the small house with another family-less girl named Hannah, next to a row of houses all filled with other orphaned kids who’ve made their way to town. At some point there had started to be too many to try to match them up with families, so they just started matching them up with each other, with a single house on the street for two adult caretakers. </p><p>Ellie liked Hannah well enough, but she hadn’t spent much time with her. Almost all of her time in the house was always centered around Dina, and she found she didn’t mind it that way.</p><p>She likes being there, in Dina’s room, just the two of them. It’s not at all the way Ellie has her own. There are no posters, or action figures. There’s not even a TV. There are instead old books with fancy sounding names stacked on the bedside table, and framed pictures of friends and her sister Talia on shelves. Dina hadn’t told Ellie anything about her, not even that she was dead, but it wasn’t hard to guess. Dina was here and Talia wasn’t, and Dina wasn’t the type to leave someone she loved behind. </p><p>There are things Ellie doesn’t recognize hanging on the walls, and a large silver candle stick holder on one of her shelves. They look old, and maybe like they’re some sort of religious or cultural thing that Ellie doesn’t understand. Ellie has never asked about them, but they seem like some important facet of Dina that she never talks about. Ellie feels like she’s being let into a secret part of her when she looks at them, even though she doesn’t know what they mean.</p><p>The room is cozy, comforting, the walls a deep blue, like the color of the ocean after a storm, or at least what Ellie imagines that looks like. Dina has more blankets and pillows than Ellie thinks are necessary, it makes her room look like a prison cell in comparison, but she still finds herself snuggling into a different one each time she’s there. </p><p>There’s almost always a small bit of incense or sage burning on a plate on Dina’s dresser, and Ellie has come to associate the smell with being in there, just with Dina, and she likes the way she can still smell it on her clothes and in her hair for a while after she leaves.</p><p>Dina looks at her in the mirror with questioning eyes, trying to get her attention.</p><p>“I don’t know. The… green one?”, Ellie answers, noncommittally.</p><p>“They’re both green.”</p><p>Ellie rolls her eyes all the way out of their sockets, “The <i>really</i> green one. The one with the fuckin’ checkers on it.”</p><p>Dina turns to her, holding both skirts, “The gingham one?”</p><p>“You made that word up.”</p><p>“It’s a real word, it means… the one with the fuckin’ checkers on it”, Dina says, turning back to the mirror and holding the one Ellie suggested up to her waist. “I read it in a magazine.”</p><p>Ellie looks back at the comic she’s pretending to read, trying to ignore her friend standing a few feet in front of her with no pants on.</p><p>“Don’t know why you’re even asking me”, she mutters to herself.</p><p>Dina smiles over her shoulder back to her, “So I know which one not to pick”.</p><p>Dina drops the gingham skirt and shimmys the other one over her legs, and Ellie feel’s even more like she shouldn’t be in the same room with Dina than she did when she wasn’t wearing it at all. Something about the way Dina slowly pulls the zipper up the side feels even more private.</p><p>She practically throws her eyes back to the pages in front of her as Dina turns around,</p><p>“What do you think?”, she says, jutting her hip to the side.</p><p>Ellie glances up and swallows the lump in her throat, “You look… you look really nice.”</p><p>Dina smiles down at her, her tongue on her teeth, and Ellie feeling like her warm brown eyes are piercing into her soul, seeing every inch of her, but Dina just pumps her eyebrows before turning back to the mirror and saying, </p><p>“Yeah, I really do.”</p><p>She starts putting her hair up, and Ellie can’t stop watching her hands. The way her fingers move effortlessly through the dark waves, pulling them back and tying them into a braid.</p><p>“I like how you usually look too”, she says quietly, almost like she’s telling Dina a secret. She kind of is. She’s found herself admiring the way jeans hug her friends legs more than once.</p><p>“I do too, but I felt like I should dress up or something”, Dina says, sparing her a glance in the mirror.</p><p>“It’s not like you’ve never met Jesse’s parents before. We’re over there all the time.”, Ellie huffs out, feeling annoyed all of a sudden. She’s not liking how this whole experience is affecting her. All of a sudden it feels so… official.</p><p>Dina shrugs, and narrows her eyes in concentration as she works the strands of her hair, her face wrinkling in a way Ellie wants to not find as adorable as she does, </p><p>“Yeah, but not as like…”, she trails off, her eyes quickly flashing to Ellie’s for only a brief moment.</p><p>“Jesse’s… girlfriend?” Ellie finishes for her, the words harder for her to say than she thinks they were for DIna.</p><p> “I guess… yeah. God, that’s weird to say… <i>girlfriend.</i> Am I supposed to let him carry my books now or something?”, Ellie forces a half-smile as Dina turns around to face her, toying with the end of her finished braid while she walks over and throws herself on her bed next to Ellie.</p><p>Ellie looks over, and she can feel her palms start to get sweaty on the pages of the book, as Dina gives her a big pout, her eyebrows coming up in the middle,</p><p>“Are you sure you don’t want to come?”</p><p>Ellie snorts, “To your and Jesse’s coming out dinner? Yeah, pretty fucking sure.”</p><p>Dina turns on her side and holds her head up with one hand, using the other to push Ellie’s arm repeatedly, “Come onnnnn. You can pretend you’re sick and then we can just go hang out afterwards.”</p><p>Ellie really wants to say yes, but things have been so… off since Dina told her that she was dating Jesse. Ellie had had her suspicions for a while, and even though a part of her was kind of hurt that Dina hadn’t told her for nearly two months, now a different part, a selfish part, wishes Dina had just kept it to herself. </p><p>Things felt different now. </p><p>Ever since Ellie had arrived in Jackson near the end of spring, her and Dina had become nearly inseparable. Ellie had forgotten what it was even like to have a friend like that. She never thought she’d have one again after Riley. But every day, there Dina was, showing up at her door, dragging her out to the lake or to her house, making her laugh, making her smile, making her feel like Jackson could really be home. </p><p>As long as Dina was there, Ellie wanted to be too.</p><p>And shit, it wasn’t even like Ellie didn’t like Jesse. They got along great too. They laughed at the same dumb stuff. She could hit him in the arm and he’d hit her back. He never treated her like she was soft or was going to break, and he was always ready to make a joke out whatever the situation was. She loved that. He was becoming her friend too.</p><p>But Dina and Jesse together. Fucking hell. Now it was like Ellie didn’t have a place. They were together, and she was just <i>there.</i> Not that Dina didn’t make an effort to make her not feel that way. Ellie just liked it when she had Dina all to herself.</p><p>In a friend way. </p><p><i>All to herself</i> in a way that friends do.</p><p>After considering it for probably way too long, Ellie shakes her head, more to get herself out of her own thoughts than anything, and says,</p><p> “Nah, I’ll probably just watch a movie with Joel tonight or something.”</p><p>Dina sighs, and smiles down at her, “Well… if you change your mind… Oh <i>shit,</i> I have to go”, her eyes catching the time on her clock, and they both scramble off the bed and out of the room.</p><p>“Walk me over there at least?”, Dina pleads, shaking her hands like she’s trying to get them dry, “I don’t know why, but I’m nervous.”</p><p>Ellie smiles as they walk through the living room, about to say yes, not feeling ready to say goodbye just yet, when Cat leans out of the kitchen, holding onto the door frame with one hand to let it support her.</p><p>“Hey ladies, where are you two off to tonight?”, she asks, her tone as coy as it always is.</p><p>Dina walks by Cat into the kitchen, giving her a bump with her hip as she passes and Cat makes a biting motion at her ear, both grinning at each other. Ellie feels strange watching them, the way they can be so… flirtatious but not mean anything by it.</p><p>Dina grabs the bread she made to take with her off the counter, saying “I’m going to Jesse’s for dinner, Ellie’s just walking me over.”</p><p>Cat presses herself against the door as Dina moves by, knicking a corner of the bread and popping it into her mouth,</p><p>“Sounds like a <i>blast”,</i> she says, giving Ellie a conspiratorial look, “What are you doing after you play escort, Red?”</p><p>Ellie grins a bit at the way Cat talks, she loves how she gives Dina a hard time about Jesse, </p><p>“I dunno… I thought I’d just go home and watch a movie or something.”</p><p><i>“Well”,</i> Cat says, drawing out the word, a smile in her voice, as she looks between Dina and Ellie, “I came over to watch a movie with Hannah, you want to just hang out with us?”</p><p>Ellie looks over at Dina who’s wrapping up her bread in a hurry and giving her a <i>we gotta go</i> look, but she still hesitates to answer. She doesn’t know why, but she always feels kind of nervous around Cat. Her tattoos. The way she dresses. Her hair. The way she always winks at her. </p><p>Ellie thinks she kind of likes it. She thinks.</p><p>“Uh, yeah sure, that sounds cool”, Ellie says, trying to match the cool confidence in Cat’s voice and thinking she’s failing, “I’ll just be back in a bit.”</p><p>Dina takes that as her cue and heads for the door, and Ellie starts to follow but Cat grabs her hand in both hands, making Ellie flinch a little at the sudden contact, </p><p>“Aw, come on, you’ll miss like the first half hour!”, Cat whines, as she looks over Ellie’s shoulder at Dina, “Dina’s a big girl. You can get to Jesse’s by your onesies, right?”</p><p>Ellie looks back at Dina, about to say she’ll go with her and just come back, but before she can get the words out, Dina is looking back at her with Cat, her face a mix of confusion and something else Ellie doesn’t recognize, and say waves Ellie off, saying, </p><p>“Yeah, of course. Cool. Have fun.”</p><p>And walks out the door, leaving Ellie standing there staring at it for a moment, before Cat beckons her back to the living room.</p><p>----------</p><p>“Is Cat always so… touchy?”, Ellie asks before shoving another bite of cake in her mouth.</p><p>Dina sits with her on the couch in Ellie’s house, the two facing each other. The small cake Dina made just for today sits on a plate between them, and Ellie ravenously forks away huge chunks, while Dina picks away at it, feeling taken aback by her question.</p><p>“What do you mean?” Dina asks, probing for more information, not sure exactly why she wants it.</p><p>“I dunno,” Ellie says between bites, “She’s always… putting her hand on my shoulder or like... touching my arm or something. Grabbing my hand. I don’t know”</p><p>Dina shrugs, tapping her fork on the plate, lying, “She doesn’t do that with me.”</p><p>Cat touches Dina all the time. They’ve been friends ever since Dina arrived in Jackson and they’ve always had a playful relationship, touching each other a lot when they talk, holding hands, snuggling during movies. Dina’s never thought anything of it.</p><p>So why does she feel weird about Cat doing that with Ellie too? Why does she feel like she doesn’t want Cat doing it?</p><p>Ellie just pops a shoulder up, seeming to accept that as an answer, and stabs her fork into the mess she’s made of the cake so she can pick up the paper crown Dina also brought her and hold it in both hands, smiling her big goofy smile.</p><p>“I can’t believe you didn’t make one of these for yourself too, it’s so fucking cool.”</p><p>“Well there was only enough paper left for one, and it’s <i>your</i> birthday”, Dina glows, watching Ellie carefully turn it over, examining it’s construction like it’s a priceless artifact. </p><p>She couldn’t decide if Ellie was more excited to get it or if she was more excited about Ellie’s reaction. It was such a simple thing. Just colored paper that Dina had cut and shaped into a crown. But Ellie was treating it like it was the most special thing in the world.</p><p>She had a way of doing that. Of making things feel special. Of making Dina feel special.</p><p>Ellie looks up at her from the crown, “So, if I’m the only one with a crown, I’m what, like the Birthday Queen?”</p><p>“Sure”, Dina says in the most patronizing voice she can muster.</p><p>Ellie immediately springs forward and places the crown on Dina’s head, “Then I say you get to wear it.”</p><p>“Ellie!”</p><p>“Hey, am I the fuckin’ Birthday Queen or not?”, Ellie says grinning, leaning back into her spot, her arms wide open, begging for a defiant answer.</p><p>Dina can’t help but smile back. Only Ellie would think someone else should get to enjoy her own present on her birthday. She was so annoying. So adorably annoying.</p><p>Dina tips the crown so it sits at an angle on her head, and bows at Ellie, who bows back, before picking her fork back up and turning her attention back on the cake. </p><p>Ellie takes another huge bite, and says through a full mouth,</p><p>“Dina, seriously, this is fucking delicious.”</p><p>“Thank you”, Dina laughs, wanting to find it disgusting, but just finding Ellie cute as hell.</p><p>“I want to eat this every day.”</p><p>“I think you’d get really fat”, Dina grins, not really able to imagine what a fat Ellie would look like.</p><p>“Nuh… not me”, Ellie says, licking her fingers, “I’m pretty sure I’m immune to cake fat.”</p><p>Dina watches Ellie happily devastating the thing she made for her, and doesn’t even notice that she’s started to bite her own lip, wondering what else she could do to make Ellie this happy, </p><p>“Well, I’ll make you another one next year”, she promises.</p><p>Ellie’s face lights up, “You know, I’m actually the weird kind of person who has a birthday twice a year, so...”</p><p>“Oh, is that right?”, Dina says, cocking her eyebrow.</p><p>“Yeah. This was actually my 32nd”, Ellie comes up for air, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “You’re talking to a 32 year old woman.”</p><p>“I have always liked the older ones”, Dina says low, leaning in towards her.</p><p>“Oh, so <i>that’s</i> why you’re with Jesse”, Ellie teases, “I’ve been trying to figure it out.”</p><p>Ellie smirks, satisfied with her own joke, but for a moment, Dina is confused. She’s not sure how, but she hadn’t thought about Jesse the whole time she’d been with Ellie today. She feels like she forgot they’re together at all. </p><p>She had woken up that morning, and the only person she had thought about since was Ellie.</p><p>She feels flustered, and defensive all of a sudden, not able to respond to the joke like she normally would,</p><p>“There’s nothing wrong with Jesse,” she says, her tone tasting harsh on her own tongue.</p><p>Ellie knits her eyebrows and scratches her cheek, “Yeah, I know, I was just-”</p><p>Dina immediately feels guilty, “No, I know, I’m sorry.”</p><p>“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Ellie says quietly.</p><p>“No, yeah, I know. Of course. It’s just, me and him…”, Dina picks at her fingers, looking down at them, “I don’t know. We’re just kind of in a fight right now.”</p><p>She looks back up at Ellie, who all of a sudden looks much more uncomfortable than she did seconds earlier, but she still mumbles out,</p><p>“Do you wanna like… talk about it?”</p><p>She can tell Ellie would much rather do anything else than talk about this, but she wants to tell her. She wants to share her life with her best friend. Why does this feel strange to talk with her about then?</p><p>Dina nods, biting her lip, and Ellie waits for her, cracking her knuckles.</p><p>“Jesse... “, <i>fuck,</i> just spit it out, Dina thinks, rolling her eyes, “said… that he <i>loves</i> me.”</p><p>Ellie raises her eyebrows and purses her lips, but Dina can’t read her face, and she only responds with, “Oh.”</p><p>“And I guess… I didn’t say it back.”, Dina continues, adjusting the crown on her head.</p><p>Ellie leans forward at that, resting her elbows on her legs, “Do you… not?”</p><p>Dina throws herself back on the couch, “Fuck, I don’t know. Maybe? I guess just ‘Thanks’ wasn’t the right thing to say back.”</p><p>She can hear Ellie chuckle as she stares at the ceiling, and she laughs a little herself. </p><p>“I guess I just wish he hadn’t said it. I wasn’t ready”, Dina admits, covering her eyes with her arm. </p><p>“What do you think you’re going to do?”, Ellie asks, her tone expectant, more interested than Dina was anticipating.</p><p>Dina huffs and sits back up, “I don’t know… what do you think I should do?”</p><p>Ellie’s mouth opens and closes, nothing coming out, and she picks at the remains of the cake with her fingers, </p><p>“I dunno. I guess… if <i>I</i> told you I loved you-”, Ellie’s eyes shoot away from her, and she continues in a small voice, “-If I were Jesse I mean… I’d want to know how you feel about… me”</p><p>Dina feels a strange tightening in her chest, seeing Ellie seem so apprehensive. So vulnerable. She’s seen Ellie fight with a boy twice her size who was bullying a small girl at the school, breaking his nose and yelling obscenities Dina had never even heard before. She saw Ellie kill a Clicker that had made its way close to the lake last summer with nothing but a sharp rock, when all the boys were too scared to act. </p><p>Seeing her now, like she was folding in on herself, looking for a place to hide, Dina just wants to hold her. To make her feel safe. To make her feel loved.</p><p>“Yeah, I guess I’ll talk to him,” she says, quickly trying to change the subject,</p><p>“Forget about Jesse, do you want to watch the movie I brought?”</p><p>Ellie grins a little, and looks up at her, “Not really. You have horrible taste in movies.”</p><p>Dina, holds her hands against her chest and gasps, “How dare you?! I have amazing taste in movies!”</p><p>“Fine, what’s this one about?”, Ellie asks getting up and carrying the meager mess of the cake over to her fridge and putting it inside.</p><p>Dina takes a deep breath and tries to remember the whole line,</p><p>“Well, it’s got fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles…”</p><p>Ellie laughs, and feigns disinterest as she hops onto her bed,</p><p>“I guess it doesn’t sound <i>too</i> awful...”</p><p>She pats the spot next to her, and Dina makes her way over and sits down close next to her,</p><p>“...I’ll try to stay awake”</p><p>“So you have seen it!”</p><p>Ellie gives her one last confused look before pressing play.</p><p>----------</p><p>Ellie lies awake in the dark, her heart pumping inside of her chest.</p><p>The tv has long since turned to static, the soft blue light painting the walls of the room.</p><p>She keeps her eyes fixed on a corner of the ceiling, trying not to look down at the source of the quiet, warm breath brushing intermittently against her neck.</p><p>It’s hot, and they’re only beneath the sheet, but Ellie was sweating. </p><p>Normally, Ellie would have stripped down to just her underwear to sleep in this kind of weather, but with Dina here, she had kept on her t-shirt and also put on her winter flannel pajama bottoms. She doesn’t know why she did that. Dina had put on shorts. She could have too. It didn’t have to be weird.</p><p>But it was. Ellie knew it was.</p><p>Dina had slept over plenty of time’s before, and she often fell asleep before whatever movie they watched was over. Normally, she did so facing away, after saying good night in a sleepy voice that Ellie looked forward to hearing. </p><p>Not tonight.</p><p>Tonight, despite the heat, Dina had moved closer to Ellie throughout the movie until she was right up against her, and then when she started to fall asleep, she curled into Ellie's body, her arm finding its way around Ellie’s waist. </p><p>Ellie just lay there like a fallen statue. Completely still. Unsure what to do. </p><p>She knew what she <i>wanted</i> to do. </p><p>She wanted to put her arm back around Dina and pull her closer. To tangle her fingers with Dina’s. To rest their heads together and fall asleep like this all the time.</p><p>It was such a strange place, feeling so safe and also too scared to move. </p><p>What was she scared of though? </p><p>When she looked at the thought long enough, she knew she was afraid of ruining this. That Dina would feel her arm press against her back and wake up and be embarrassed, move away from her.</p><p>So Ellie stays still, and tries to fall asleep to the sound of Dina breathing softly against her.</p><p>After an hour goes by and sleep doesn’t find her, Ellie decides, what the fuck? You only live once.</p><p>She slowly extricates her arm from between the two of them, and Dina stirs a little but doesn’t wake. Ellie gently puts her arm around Dina’s shoulders, and Dina immediately makes a happy sound in her sleep, and snuggles closer into Ellie’s body.</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>Oh <i>fuck.</i></p><p>Ellie doesn’t feel better.</p><p>She doesn’t feel relief, or exhilaration. </p><p>She feels panic.</p><p>It hits her hard and fast and she can’t stop it or put it back in it’s box. </p><p>It’s out. And it’s here.</p><p>And <i>goddammit,</i> once she knows it, she know’s it’s true. Like the stars in the sky and the ground beneath her feet. It’s real and it’s honest and it’s horrifying.</p><p>She thought she was scared of being alone, but now… now she’s scared of this.</p><p>“Motherfucker,” she says aloud, under her breath.</p><p>Dina raises her head a little, not opening her eyes, and mumbles softly “Wha…”</p><p>“Nothing”, Ellie whispers, “Go back to sleep.”</p><p>Her head immediately drops back down on Ellie’s chest, and in a few moments Ellie can feel her breath even out again, Dina’s hand gripping the fabric of Ellie’s t-shirt.</p><p>Ellie look’s down at her face and takes in all the details in the light of television. The smooth shape of her skin. The patches of dark freckles. The soft curve of her lips. </p><p>She curses again silently, not able to believe how horrible her luck is. </p><p>She’d never been in love before.</p><p>This is going to <i>FUCKING.</i></p><p>
  <i>SUCK.</i>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Don't know how many chapters this will be at this point. </p><p>The song I listened to while writing this was "Silhouette" by Active Child, because I'm a 15 year old girl at heart, apparently.</p><p>Find me on <a href="https://whiskeytango8686.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a> . Send a writing prompt for this series if you'd like, maybe I'll run with it.</p>
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
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    <p>I <i>hate</i> when a story I'm reading just never gets updated with no explanation, so, here's an explanation.</p><p>This one is going on hiatus for a little bit.</p><p>Everything I wanted to say with it, I just keep finding being said beautifully in Heygaymayday's (formerly Emcee_8912) "Look out, Jackson Town" series. I try to quit reading it, and I can't stop. It's just so good. </p><p>So, I'm putting "Something Not Meant to Last" on the back burner for a while until I can figure out how to restructure what I want to do with it.</p><p>If you want to read what I wanted to say with it (if not the exact plot structure or anything), but with <i>much</i> better dialogue, seriously, go read the "Look Out, Jackson Town" series. I can't say enough good things about it. </p><p>In the meantime, I have another story I'm working on, so hopefully that'll fill the gap.</p><p>Thanks everyone!</p>
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